The Ekos poll: Federal Conservatives still mired below 30 per cent

The past few weeks have been unusually peaceful for Steven Harper and his government. The more or less regular barrage of criticism and sniping which has marked his relationships with media and the opposition over the past year was displaced, temporarily, by a series of surprising events.

First, the untimely and tragic death of Jim Flaherty led to the short-term suspension of parliamentary invective and a state funeral. That was followed by the unexpected announcement that the RCMP has put aside the Nigel Wright investigation for lack of evidence.

Then, Elections Canada announced that it was ending its probe of the so-called ‘robocalls’ scandal with no charges or further action anticipated. Finally, the venerable New York Times announced that Canada’s allegedly reeling middle class were, in fact, world-beaters in terms of economic achievement — robbing the opposition parties of a stick with which to beat the government.

For a government lingering at support levels dramatically short of their stunning majority victory of 2011, this was all very good news. Only an announcement that climate change had been revealed as a cruel hoax by the Royal Society, or that Vladimir Putin was announcing a hasty withdrawal from Ukraine, could have made April any brighter for Stephen Harper.

So you might well expect all of the polls to start showing a warming trend in the Conservatives’ favour, breaking up the lead enjoyed by the rejuvenated Liberal party for over a year.

But the Conservatives might want to keep the champagne on ice for the time being. Our most recent poll (see the graphs at the bottom of the page) does not find what two methodologically different recent polls found. We see no new Conservative surge. In fact, we don’t see much of anything in our carefully constructed probability sample of nearly 4,000 Canadians. While different firms may disagree on this point, we feel much more comfortable with these methods than with those that don’t come from probability samples and that cannot speak for Canadians who can’t, or won’t, complete surveys online.

If we squint hard enough, there may be some marginal evidence of improvement for Mr. Harper — or maybe not. The more obvious and important finding is the Liberals’ continued and stable lead. The bigger question may be this: If the events of the past few weeks can’t lift Mr. Harper out of his sub-30 polling freeze, can anything?

Regionally, the Ontario race — the key to 2015 — appears to have tightened, although the Liberals still lead there. Conservative support seems inefficiently concentrated in the Prairies; wide margins of victory do not translate into extra seats. The NDP, meanwhile, is doing very well in Quebec.

These results suggest that if Trudeau stumbles, the NDP might pick up the promiscuous progressive vote that will support any plausible replacement for the Conservatives.

Justin Trudeau now seems to be registering with younger voters, a group with which he had been unable to make any headway until recently. It should be noted, however, that youth support is a double-edged sword: While the ability to connect with young people will be crucial in establishing a new, youthful brand, young people consistently fail to vote in anywhere near the same numbers as their parents and grandparents.

It is also interesting that there is no distinct age profile for Liberal supporters. Unlike the Conservative Party (who draw their support largely from older Canadians) or the Greens (who rely disproportionately on youth), the Liberals perform equally well across all age groups.

While the NDP has fallen to a distant third place in recent months, there is some good news in what is otherwise a rather bleak poll for them. Although they are not in particularly good shape in terms of first choice, nearly half of Liberal supporters would consider the NDP as their second choice. These results suggest that if Trudeau stumbles, the NDP might pick up the promiscuous progressive vote that will support any plausible replacement for the Conservatives.

Still, when we combine Canadians’ first and second choices, the Liberals provide a theoretical home to just over half of Canadian voters. While it may be premature to declare the rebirth of Canada’s former “natural governing party”, these results do suggest that Mr. Trudeau has been successful in re-establishing the party’s centrist brand.

Finally, we asked Canadians whether they approve of Canada’s three major party leaders. Mr. Harper’s approval rating remains mired at below 30 points and, while he remains a superstar within his own party, he is highly unpopular everywhere else. Mr. Mulcair, meanwhile, comes in as the least objectionable choice; while he is tied with Mr. Trudeau in terms of approval, he has, by far, the lowest disapproval rating.

Mr. Trudeau, on the other hand, is a highly polarizing figure: He enjoys the approval of nearly two-fifths of Canadians, although a similar proportion — 35 per cent — reject his leadership approach.

On the other hand, Mr. Harper enjoyed the approval of barely one-third of Canadians when he won a majority mandate. It’s not the fervour of one’s opponents but the enthusiasm and commitment of one’s supporters that wins elections.

Heady times? You need to get a life. Frank Graves has no credibility and he readily acknowledges his company has blown it many times when it comes to predicting how people will vote. Campaigns matter and compared to his opposition Harper is light years ahead of them.

While other pollsters have the NDP leading in BC and Quebec – and higher in Ontario – Frank’s polling has the Liberals consistently higher. Here in BC the weak performance of the corrupt BC Liberal regime is not helping Trudeau nor is his support for the Kinder Morgan pipeline – even before the bogus hearings – or any environmental assessment are complete! If Harper approves the Enbridge pipeline in June – despite the views of Kitimat citizens, coastal First Nations, and the general public – then many of his 20-plus seats will be at risk to the NDP. A steady, unabated diet of current tv and radio ads by Enbridge indicate the fix is in.
The only apparent consensus amongst pollsters is that Mulcair has the lowest disapproval ratings ,whilst tied with Trudeau in approval.
It seems that between parliamentary sittings Harper and Trudeau hold their support while during sittings Mulcair steadily improves. Mulcair’s strong performance and Trudeau’s weak House performance may explain that phenomena . While Harper swats away Trudeau like an annoying fly, he seems to have increasing difficulty with Mulcair’s constant and effective grilling.
Not since John Diefenbaker have I seen such an effective Official Opposition leader as Tom Mulcair

Adding graphs etc. to the column does not change the fact that the poll is done by a company that supports the Liberal party and it will be a frosty day in hell before anything positive is said by Ekos about the Conservative government and particularly Mr. Harper. I scanned the column but it really wasn’t worth the read.

Canadians contrary to conservative belief, have very good memories and many of them can make a long, long list of shading doings connected to the present government. It would take pages and pages to list them all.

As usual anything from Frank Graves is considered a joke, even we, the great unwashed and dumbed down electorate, know that. CBC dropped him long ago for his partisan tactics and when they do that, given their history of bias, it really says something. Ekos has no credibility whatsoever amongst the political chattering class and it’s only here on this site that he is given a platform.